Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

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the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 104

the Directory in November 1799 did not receive their approval. The legisla-

tive councils, having been warned, countered by voting the dissolution

of the Directory on 7 January 1800, entrusting power to an executive

committee in which Dolder exerted the leading inﬂ uence. The executive

committee soon also fell to quarrelling with the councils and appealed to

Bonaparte. On 7 August 1800 the councils, surrounded by French troops,

capitulated and formed a provisional government from among their own

ranks, charged with the task of preparing a new constitution. The coup was

the work of moderate unionists, that is to say, that party which favoured

strong central government and a unitary state. Above all, they were advo-

cates of government by notables. As enemies of the Jacobins, they sought the

support of the aristocracy and reintroduced tithes, ground rents and feudal

dues which had previously been abolished. True, these were made redeem-

able, but at the expense of the peasantry. In January 1801 these moderates

submitted to Bonaparte a constitutional project markedly unionist in char-

acter, according to which the members of the constituted bodies were to be

co-opted. Seeing that the unionists were intent upon laying claim to the

Valais and to the bishopric of Basle (the Bernese Jura), the federalist-minded

representative of the French government in Switzerland, Reinhard, suggested

fomenting a new revolution with the support of the aristocracy. This,

however, Bonaparte would not permit. He simply rejected the constitutional

proposal, and on 29 April 1801 substituted for it a counter-project called

the ‘Constitution of Malmaison’, which foreshadowed the later Act of

Mediation. Bonaparte felt that federalist sentiment was too deeply rooted

not to grant a large degree of sovereignty to the cantons. It is also likely that

since he intended to evacuate Switzerland in order to beneﬁ t from its

neutrality, he was not favourably disposed to the creation of a centralised

Switzerland which would have made that country too powerful. By the

Constitution of Malmaison, the seventeen cantons were given considerable

autonomy, and were authorised to frame their own constitutions with a

proviso that suffrage be limited to property holders. The federal Diet elected

a Senate consisting of twenty-ﬁ ve members who in turn chose two leading

magistrates from among themselves bearing the title of Landammann : one

presided over the Senate; the other formed, along with four other senators,

a small council which was to exercise the executive authority. The central

federal authority now possessed extensive powers, particularly in its

appointment of the cantonal prefects ( Statthalters ).

This solution pleased no one. The unionists assured themselves a majority

in the Diet, and excluded from the Senate the federalists who seceded. The

unionists then refused to apply the Constitution of Malmaison, voted for a

105the pacification of europe

new one, and, to crown it all, openly deﬁ ed Bonaparte by accepting into

their ranks the deputies from the Valais. On 28 October 1801 the French

agent, Verninac, and General Choin de Montchoisy declared the Diet

dissolved and set up a provisional government under the rule of Aloys

Reding, the ablest of the aristocrats. Reding purged the administration,

suppressed freedom of the press, amnestied the émigrés, abolished the land

tax and reopened the monasteries. Bonaparte refused to recognise him,

demanding that he make a place for the moderates. This naturally created

discord within the council. Reding journeyed to Paris, but received nothing

for his trouble; he returned to Switzerland, and proceeded on his own

authority to promulgate a new constitution on 26 February 1802. During

the Easter recess, however, Verninac took advantage of Reding’s absence

from Berne to have it annulled by his enemies. An assembly of notables was

summoned, and it ﬁ nally approved the Constitution of Malmaison on

29 May 1802 and appointed Dolder Landammann . The Valais was constituted

as an independent republic, and the valley of Dappes was ceded to France.

There exists an obvious connection between these changes and those

which took place in France. Everywhere, the Constitution of Year VIII had

encouraged notables to lay claim to authority by much the same processes.

Everywhere, the executive power had undergone strengthening, thus

holding out the promise of order and stability. And everywhere, Bonaparte

demanded that democrats be brushed aside and that efforts be made to win

over moderates and well-intentioned aristocrats. But it was in Italy, where he

regarded himself as master rather than arbiter, that Bonaparte revealed his

real predilections, which he never dared to make the rule in France, still less

in Holland or Switzerland, where he was to maintain genuine elections in

the future. In the Italian constitutions, the electoral colleges were not in any

way founded on suffrage, even of a kind limited to property holders. They

were simply professional groupings: the ﬁ rst consisted of a certain number

of landed proprietors ( possidenti ), the second of merchants and manufac-

turers ( commercianti ) and the third of members of the professional classes

( dotti ). The ﬁ rst two of these colleges co-opted their members; the third,

being naturally suspect of harbouring ‘ideology’, i.e., subversive ideas, was

limited to offering the government a list of candidates. To perfect the scheme,

only one step remained to be made: simply to confer upon the chief of state

the power to appoint the members of the colleges.

In itself, the reorganisation of the states that bordered France did not offer

Europe any cause for concern. Quite the contrary: it was to be hoped that

France, having made it possible for these states to govern themselves, would

recall her troops and give them the independence which she had promised

the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 106

them – barring the details – in the Treaty of Lunéville. Bonaparte did in fact

give the order to evacuate Switzerland in July 1802; and he also consented

to reduce the number of soldiers stationed in Holland – the prince of Orange

having renounced his claims to the stadholdership on 24 May, in exchange

for the cession of Fulda and Corvey to his son. At any rate, it was good

enough to pass as a promise of future evacuation. Melzi, in the Italian

Republic, hoped to obtain a similar advantage sooner or later: Bonaparte’s

presidency could only be temporary. How very illusory these hopes appear

to us today! But without these illusions, the road upon which Addington

and Pitt decided to venture would have lacked all raison d’être .

BONAPARTE CONSUL FOR LIFE

Victory and peace made Bonaparte a hero of the nation, and he used the

occasion to increase his personal power and to further his personal ambi-

tions. The country, satisﬁ ed with his accomplishments, was willing to follow

him; but there were feelings of regret and anxiety when he heightened his

dictatorship at the very moment when peace promised a return to liberty. In

any event, opposition increased, and it was only by fresh applications of

force that Bonaparte was able to subdue the resistance.

THE CRISIS OF YEAR IX

After Bonaparte’s departure for Italy, France experienced a period of anguish.

His defeat would probably have resulted in an invasion by foreign troops,

and most certainly in new uprisings inasmuch as bread prices had risen ever

since the harvest of Year VII; during the course of a riot in Toulouse, the mob

forced merchants to lower the price of grain. On the Paris exchange, prices

were falling. Then suddenly, as if by magic, the news of the military victory

at Marengo restored public conﬁ dence and magniﬁ ed Bonaparte’s popu-

larity a hundredfold. Appreciating the power of the press and possessing an

instinct for public relations, Bonaparte had assumed that such indeed would

be the effect. In his mind, pride and ambition spontaneously transformed

truth into legend. He published a Bulletin of the Army of Reserve which, along

with the Moniteur and other more or less ofﬁ cial newspapers, gloriﬁ ed his

entire campaign. Moreau’s victory at Hohenlinden came too late to atten-

uate his prestige, and besides, he took good care to stiﬂ e its repercussions.

the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 108

Ironically, had the truth about Marengo been known, Bonaparte’s halo

would surely have been even brighter, for men are seduced still more by the

workings of chance than by sheer genius (and it inspires in them a certain

superstitious awe). The throw of the dice at Marengo could hardly have

detracted from a man who, on two occasions, had miraculously escaped the

English cruisers.

In the meantime, Bonaparte, having heard what was being said and

plotted during his absence, hastened to return to Paris, and he entered the

city on 2 July 1800. He returned an embittered man, full of rancour against

his entourage, with a hostile distrust for the generals who had been waiting

for the chance to succeed him. And he was seized with a feeling of melan-

choly now that the effort was spent and the danger past – and now that the

tragic side of the adventure dawned on him with the full realisation of how

close he had come to disaster.

The royalists collapsed at once. Only a few bands of brigands remained

from their preparations for an insurrection. Wickham returned to England,

and the agency in Augsburg dispersed; some of its members tried to regroup

in Bayreuth, but Fouché had them thrown into prison by the Prussian police.

England stopped subsidising Condé’s corps of émigrés, which had entered

into its pay, and disbanded it. On 7 September 1800 Bonaparte at last made

his reply to Louis XVIII saying, ‘Your return to France is not a thing to be

wished for; it could only be accomplished over the bodies of one hundred

thousand men.’ Expelled from Mittau, the king took refuge in Warsaw, then

later went to England. Their rupture was complete.

The republicans, too, were well aware that Bonaparte’s victory would

rivet their chains. There were many in his entourage who had secretly

contemplated his death or downfall. Now they became all the more anxious

to convince him of the necessity to stabilise his authority by restoring the

hereditary monarchy to his own advantage. Most illustrious among them

were Roederer and the Feuillants. They had rallied to the Republic, but

remained monarchists at heart. Talleyrand naturally supported them. Lucien

Bonaparte, always turbulent, fearlessly said what no one else dared to say

when he launched a pamphlet entitled A Comparison between Caesar, Cromwell,

Monk and Bonaparte , which was probably written by Fontanes. The path of

fortune had been marked for Fontanes ever since the First Consul had

returned to France and designated him to deliver a eulogy on the occasion

of Washington’s death, not to mention the fact that he was already Elisa

Bonaparte’s lover.

Nevertheless, all these manoeuvres encountered resistance. Fouché

remained hostile to all monarchical projects until 1804. For Fouché,

109bonaparte consul for life

although widely connected and valued even in the Faubourg Saint-Germain

for personal services rendered sub rosa , was still regarded as the leader of the

left. And not without good reason. True, he was a sceptic who bore no illu-

sions about men, an egotist whose passions were money and power. But his

attachment to his revolutionary past was greater than one might suppose.

Witness his domestic life, simple and familial, his cool vigour and determi-

nation, and his preference for terroristic methods, which, although wisely

tempered, quite naturally suited his functions as chief of police. Then there

was his sincere desire to save what he could of the work of the Revolution

and to prevent the aristocracy from regaining control of the state. Finally,

and above all, there was his hot temper, concealed under a phlegmatic exte-

rior, resulting in his habitual irreverence, his caustic tongue and his nostalgic

regret for the time when, as representative on mission of the Convention, he

too had spoken with absolute authority in the name of the sovereign people.

Bonaparte valued his talents and feared him, feeling that Fouché might

assert his independence at any time.

Fouché found support in Bonaparte’s immediate circle. Josephine, having

failed to produce an heir, feared that the establishment of a hereditary line

of succession would lead to a divorce. Bonaparte could hardly have been

pleased by the insatiableness of his family clan; he fully expected a raging

tempest if circumstances forced him to choose between his brothers. But he

did not intend to have his hand forced, and he considered any talk of

monarchy premature at this time: the peace had not been concluded, the

reorganisation of the country had to be completed, and the parliamentary

bodies still had to be cowed. And so Lucien was dismissed; he ceded his post

as minister of the interior to Chaptal, and became an ambassador.

Bonaparte was waiting, nonetheless, for the chance to increase his own

power. The uncovering of several conspiracies furnished him with just such

an opportunity. These plots were still another consequence of the victory at

Marengo: after that battle, the Jacobins and royalists lost all hope, and some

became desperate enough to try their hand at assassination. In the closing

days of Year VIII and shortly thereafter, three Jacobin plots were uncovered:

on 14 September three persons were arrested; this was followed by the arrest

of Aréna, Topino-Lebrun and two others on 10 October; and ﬁ nally, Chevalier

and an alleged accomplice on 8 November. Whether or not these conspira-

cies were genuine has never been settled. The second seems to have been

uncovered behind Fouché’s back, and Fouché, feeling his position endan-

gered, made a great fuss about the third so-called conspiracy. Just as the

government was working on a project to proscribe the Jacobins, the royalists

came on the scene and greatly facilitated this task. In June Cadoudal had sent

the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 110

several Chouans from Brittany to organise a plot in Paris. The police, who kept

track of their movements, were only able to apprehend a certain chevalier de

Margadel, whom they shot. Three of the conspirators – Saint-Réjant, Limoélan

and Jean Carbon – managed to construct an infernal machine which they

exploded in the rue Saint-Nicaise the evening of 24 December on Bonaparte’s

route from the Tuileries to the Opéra. Twenty-two people were killed and

ﬁ fty-six were wounded, but Bonaparte escaped unharmed. The consensus

was that this had been the work of Jacobins. Bonaparte, who was already

near enough to the throne to loathe regicides above all else, also appears to

have believed it. On 25 December, while the parliamentary bodies were

congratulating him on his fortunate escape, he thundered furious impreca-

tions on ‘those who have dishonoured the Republic and sullied the cause of

liberty by all kinds of excesses, and especially by the part they played in the

September days and the like’. ‘Blood must run,’ he declared in the Conseil

d’État on 26 December. And indeed, the previously accused Jacobins were

either shot or guillotined on 13, 20 and 31 January 1801.

The upshot of the affair was the wholesale arrest of Jacobins which now

followed, and their subsequent deportation without trial. Fouché had laid

the blame on ‘English gold’ ever since the night of the attempt – indeed, he

knew who the true culprits were. Limoélan was kept in hiding by the Jesuit

Clorivière and by the sister of Champion de Cicé until he ﬁ nally managed to

escape to America where he became a model priest; Carbon was arrested on

8 January, and Saint-Réjant on 28 January. But it was too late to save the

victimised Jacobins, and besides, Bonaparte could not have been swayed

from his goal. The Conseil d’État refused to pronounce on the proscription,

declaring that it was not a legislative matter. Then on 5 January the Senate

was called upon to ratify the act as a ‘measure tending to preserve the

Constitution’. Among the 130 deportees were Choudieu and two former

deputies, Talot and Destrem, whose vehement opposition on 19 Brumaire

Bonaparte had never forgiven. There were also some well-known revolu-

tionaries: Fournier l’Américain, Rossignol and Lepeletier. Fouché managed

to save about a third of them by playing for time. Twenty-six were not sent

to Guiana until 1804, and sixty-eight were shipped out to the Seychelles

after 1801. More than half died in exile. In addition, many more republicans

were placed under surveillance. Fouché also arrested about a hundred royal-

ists, whom he condemned to prison or interned without trial. Carbon and

Saint-Réjant were tried at last, and succumbed to the guillotine on 21 April.

The Bonapartist terror had once again struck the left and the right. ‘It was

the only kind of impartial justice from which he never wavered,’ wrote

Madame de Staël; ‘thus he made friends out of those to whose hatreds he

111bonaparte consul for life

ministered.’ The blow had been directed primarily against the left, and one

might even say that it had been completely crushed. But the Jacobins were

not the only ones affected. The assemblies had not been summoned to vote

on the law of proscription, because it was not absolutely sure that they

would accept it. Bonaparte’s pronouncement on 26 December, that ‘the

metaphysicians are the cause for all our troubles’, very clearly constituted a

threat to the assemblies. After that, he turned to the Senate which, as

‘guardian of the constitution’, invested itself tacitly with the power to

modify or violate that constitution. Consequently, the decree of 13 Nivôse,

Year IX (5 January 1801), stands as the ﬁ rst in a series of senatus consulta which

were to make it possible for Bonaparte to legislate personally without the

legal assistance of the assemblies, and so to revise to his own advantage the

Constitution of Year VIII, which had not provided for any such procedure.

During and after the month of November 1800, while the proscription of

the Jacobins was going on, Bonaparte contemplated certain repressive meas-

ures which, although less spectacular, would exercise a still much greater

inﬂ uence on the general condition of the country. The problem, as he saw it,

was to put an end to the Chouan uprisings and to brigandage with one blow.

Cadoudal, having revived the Chouannerie , was scouring the countryside in

Brittany. He was continually being hunted down and was forever eluding

capture. Using the good ofﬁ ces of the royalist Bourmont, Fouché ﬁ nally

succeeded in bribing certain persons involved in the Chouannerie to kill or

deliver Cadoudal to the police. But the Breton royalists had an extremely

active counter-espionage network which extended into the government

ministries. Thus, when the two renegade Chouans , Becdelièvre and Duchatellier,

were sent to murder their former leader, Cadoudal, informed of the situa-

tion, had them killed. The prefect of Ille-et-Vilaine, Borie, may himself have

betrayed Duchatellier.

The exploits of the Chouans exasperated Bonaparte. On 23 September 1800

Clément de Ris, former administrator of Indre-et-Loire, senator and important

purchaser of the biens nationaux , was kidnapped from his château at

Azay-sur-Cher, while on 19 November Audrein, bishop of Finistère, was assas-

sinated. Convoys carrying treasury funds were continually being raided and

pillaged by various bands of insurgents. As in Year VIII, Bonaparte had recourse

to extreme measures. On 18 Floréal, Year IX (8 May 1801), three columns

accompanied by military tribunals were despatched under the command of

General Bernadotte. The mopping-up operations proceeded rapidly. By the end

of the year, Cadoudal returned to England. Even so, there still remained some

isolated bands of Chouans . Aside from a few sincere individuals, the majority

were irregulars who looked upon rebellion as a way of life.

the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 112

Whether or not the brigands invoked the name of religion or the king,

they existed to some extent everywhere. Certainly they were not restricted

to mountainous regions, such as the Alps and Apennines where the Barbets

carried on a smuggling trade; they were also to be found in wealthy places

such as Nord and Beauce. People called them chauffeurs (furnace men)

because they tortured their victims by ﬁ re to extract their money. This was

nothing new; the rural population abounded in day labourers, who were

unemployed part of the year, and peasants who were unable to live on the

meagre harvest from their lands, especially during the bad years. The coun-

tryside was always swarming with beggars and vagabonds, and it was in-

evitable that some of them became outlaws. The evil had been seriously

aggravated by internal troubles as well as the war, which upset the economy

and disorganised the rural police. The peasant has always valued his security

even more than the urban dweller, because he has always been more exposed.

And since security is the basic condition of sustained and productive labour,

nothing could have been of greater service to the nation than its re-

establishment. Consequently, nothing could have heightened Bonaparte’s

reputation more, as was indeed the case with Henri IV and Louis XIV.

The problem was not just one of apprehending the brigands – that could

have been done by letting the army reinforce the gendarmerie – but of obtaining

their conviction. Both witnesses and juries knew that they were open to

reprisals, and so the one kept quiet and the other acquitted the culprits.

Numerous cases of misdemeanours had already been brought before the

courts in Year VIII, and prefects had been given the right to supervise the

choosing of juries by the justices of the peace. The results remained poor.

Moreover, the slowness with which the repression was carried out deprived

it, in part at least, of its efﬁ cacy. Under analogous circumstances, the

monarchy had had recourse to the provostal court, a special legal instru-

ment which summarily condemned and executed: ‘caught and hung’. As an

exceptional measure, Bonaparte resorted to military tribunals in the west, in

Provence and in the Rhineland. He had not the slightest intention of

renouncing them, but he also wished to revive the expeditious methods of

the ancien régime on a permanent and regular basis.

Such, then, was the object of the law of 18 Pluviôse, Year IX (7 February

1801). It authorised the government to establish, in each département

where Bonaparte thought it advisable (he decided on thirty-two), a special

criminal court composed of a president, two judges from the regular crim-

inal court and ﬁ ve other persons (three from the military, two civilians) all

appointed by the First Consul. They were to pronounce ﬁ nal judgement,

without appeal, on vagrants and habitual criminals, ratione personae , and

113bonaparte consul for life

on a great number of crimes pertaining to brigandage: burglary, highway

robbery, murder, arson, counterfeiting, seditious assembly and illegal

possession of weapons. The following year, on 23 Floréal, Year X (13 May

1802), another special court was established in every départment dealing

with crimes of forgery, but which, in the absence of a special criminal court,

could also take cognisance of many crimes of brigandage.

On 26 Vendémiaire, Year XI (18 October 1802), the jury system was

suspended in a large number of départements by a senatus consultum ; hence-

forth, criminal court judges were set up into a kind of special court without

any intervention on the part of the military, however. In short, Bonaparte did

away with the jury system in a great many parts of France, and these newly

created judicial bodies continued to function until his downfall. The same

law did away with the grand jury, since the special courts now delegated the

preliminary judicial inquiry to one of their members. Finally, the regular

judicial process, wherever it continued to exist, was given new strength by

a change in the ofﬁ ce of public prosecutor and by a reform in procedure.

On 7 Pluviôse, Year IX (27 January 1801), a ‘criminal magistrate’ ( magistrat de

sûreté ) took the place of the government commissioner in the courts of the

ﬁ rst instance, and he was empowered to draw up the indictments; the judi-

cial inquiry became in part secret, witnesses being heard in the absence of

the accused. Thus the grand jury had to decide from indirect evidence, since

the accuser and witnesses were excused from appearing in court so that they

might be kept out of reach of the felons’ vengeance.

Despite all of these measures, one should not conclude that Bonaparte

succeeded in immediately re-establishing perfect order in the country

districts. Regardless of what he may have thought or done, the suppression

of mendicity and vagabondage did not depend on him entirely. It was a long

time before outright banditry was overcome. In the Rhineland, it was a

difﬁ cult task to capture Schinderhannes, a veritable ‘Cartouche’

whom

people regarded with some complacency because he was particularly fond

of attacking Jews. Nevertheless, by the early years of the Empire it was

apparent that conditions had become incontestably better. Since the special

courts were not used for political ends – they touched only the abject and

delinquent members of society – they were not condemned by public

opinion. As for political suspects, Bonaparte dealt with them through the

military tribunals of which he made much use. Although the judicial

reforms were severe with respect to professional criminals, they also served

* Cartouche was the leader of a notorious band of robbers in the early eighteenth century.

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